Christian Icons thread - Part I. The Shroud of Turin.

[classical_hero]

If your faith is in a symbol, then you really do not have faith at all.

 

[Che Guava]

I really do not understand why some people are so into all this icon business. It is better if someone is Christian to be looking to God, not in these symbols.

I think most people of european descent are pagans at heart, and pagans like icons and religous trinkets....

 

[bhsup]

We're kind of straying from the shroud here into a general discussion of icons vs. faith. In that vein, I agree wholeheartedly with Classical Hero, btw.

However, back to the shroud. That Wiki link in the first post has some interesting information in it. I was aware of the radiocarbon dating on it, but I was NOT aware of the following:

Arguments and evidence cited for the shroud's being something other than a medieval forgery include textile and material analysis pointing to a 1st-century origin; the unusual properties of the image itself which some claim could not have been produced by any image forming technique known before the 19th century; objective indications that the 1988 radiocarbon dating was invalid due to improper testing technique; and repeated peer-reviewed analyses of the image mode which contradict McCrone's assertions.

Either way, even if it were shown to be an actual 1st century shroud and more evidence was found linking it to Christ, it still shouldn't be something to be revered. Fascinating scientific study maybe, but nothing more.

 

[Elrohir]

Simply put, I don't know what the Shroud of Turin is, and it doesn't matter. My faith won't be shaken if it isn't.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

I am of the opinion that the Shroud of Turin is just a clever forgery. But it doesn't matter. If the shroud really is from the 1st century, it doesn't prove Christianity in general or Catholicism in particular to be true. If it is medieval, it doesn't prove Christianity in general or Catholicism in particular to be false.

 

[Che Guava]

Simply put, I don't know what the Shroud of Turin is, and it doesn't matter. My faith won't be shaken if it isn't.

But aren't you at all curious...?

 

[MrCynical]

I heard it say that it was done by Leonardo da Vinci, using a primitive version of photochromatic material to achieve that strange effect. It was a documentary and a few years ago.

Seems highly implausible, and sounds like something out of the Da Vinci code. Whatever your beliefs on the shroud's origins, both carbon dating and reliable records indicate it is too old to have been made by Leonardo. The earliest reliable references to the shroud date to around 1350-1390.

Something just doen't seem right about it to me. Somehow he looks a little too much like medieval depictions of Christ. I always figured if we ever did find a real representation of Jesus, he would look more...semetic?

Oddly enough this image doesn't match medieval images of the crucifixion very well. The image shows a body which was crucified with the nails driven through the wrists. Particularly in the Middle Ages images of the crucifixion showed the nails driven through the palms of the hands, and indeed the shroud was denounced as a fake around this time because they believed it incorrectly depicted the method of crucifixion. (At the time the Latin Vulgate Bible specified that the nails had been driven through Jesus' hands, not wrists, owing to a translation error from the Greek).

It is now known that crucifixion was carried out with nails through the wrists, not the hands, (indeed it is not possible to crucify someone with nails through the wrists as the bones there are not strong enough to support the weight of the body). If this is a forgery it was made by someone with more than average medieval knowledge of crucifixion, and who was willing to ignore the classic medieval images, despite this lessening the forgery's credibility at the time.

The carbon dating results are unfortunately somewhat unclear. The three different tests gave results between 1260 and 1390 (reasonably consistent with known records). However carbon dating on an object this modern should not give this wide a range of results. An error range of a few years, yes, not more than a century. This could imply that the sample was taken from a patch (or possibly part of the sample was from a patch) as has been suggested. It is unquestionable that the shroud has been patched several times, but I'd have thought any researcher would have the sense to avoid obvious repair work. There is also the issue that carbon dating is best for objects that have recently been unearthed, and shielded from human contact. The shroud has without doubt been exposed to human contact for several centuries.

The image on the shroud does have some rather curious features for a human. The head in particular seems out of proportion, and the eyes are too far up the face. This is more consistent with either a very amateurish artist (seems unlikely given the quality of the forgery, if it is one), or with early images. This very distorted style of drawing the face is similiar to that seen in older images, such as the mosaic Christ Pantocrator. Whether that suggests the shroud is older than the medieval times, or that the artist merely used an older image as a source, it's hard to say.

It's been suggested that the Shroud is actually one and the same as the Image of Edessa (a cloth which also supposedly bore an image of Christ) which is known to have existed from around 400AD to 1204, when it disappears.

I could certainly believe the shroud is substantially older than the current medieval dating, for the simple reason that if someone wished to make a forgery in that time period this is a very bad way of doing it. As I've said, at that time it was widely denounced by the Church as a fake. Whether I could believe it dates back as far as the first century is another matter. Even if it could be proved the shroud is that old though, there seems no reason to assume the image is that of Christ.

By far the most obvious solution would be another series of radiocarbon tests, this time ensuring that part of the original cloth is used. Unfortunately permission for this has been repeatedly rejected, on grounds of causing sacreligious damage.

 

[Che Guava]

MrCynical: wow! that's food for thought! I would be real interested in reading more about teh chaging image of christ over the centuries, any good sources for me?

 

[bhsup]

Um, I'll have to look tonight when I get home, but I thought that it had actually recently been proven that the body can indeed support the weight when nailed through the palms, given how they were placed on the cross, or something like that. Odd, really. Disproving the disproving??

 

[MrCynical]

I would be real interested in reading more about teh chaging image of christ over the centuries, any good sources for me?

There's quite a good article on the Wiki showing several images from different time periods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Images_of_Jesus

Um, I'll have to look tonight when I get home, but I thought that it had actually recently been proven that the body can indeed support the weight when nailed through the palms, given how they were placed on the cross, or something like that. Odd, really. Disproving the disproving??

There is still a certain amount of debate on this. It's fairly conclusive that the hands won't take the weight on their own, but it's possible they could if you also tied the victim to the cross with ropes round the wrists, or gave them a foot rest to take some of the weight. Another option would be to drive the nails in at a very steep angle, so they entered through the palm, but exited through the wrist.

Unfortunately there are few records on the subject. The Bible during Medieval times translated the location of the nails as through the hands, but the word in the older texts is a Greek word referring to the entire forearm, so is somewhat unhelpful. There are also very few physical remains of crucifixion victims (indeed only one body is known of roughly the right period, and I can find no reference as to where that had the upper nails).

EDIT: manged to track down some more info on the one known crucified body. The skeleton is in somewhat poor condition, but clearly shows the feet were nailed to the sides of the cross, not the front as is frequently depicted. The forearms appeared undamaged anywhere, suggesting the arms were merely tied to the crossbar, not nailed in place at all.

 

[Brian_B]

I enjoy stuff like this from a historical standpoint. Unfortunately everything I have read suggests the Shroud is a forgery that dates several centuries after the death of Christ.

 

[Perfection]

Doesn't really go with my decor...

If your faith is in a symbol, then you really do not have faith at all.

What do yo have faith in?

 

[Masquerouge]

The Shroud of Turin is a forgery. But I don't think it is a crucial artifact for Christianity.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

I think it is just a piece of cloth that covered somebody. We don't even know what Jesus look like, so how the h*ll can we draw the conclusion that he is the one on the shroud?

You can say "Oh well he shows the wounds of crucifixion", sorry to burst your bubble, but crucifixion was not that uncommon in Roman days.

 

[Rik Meleet]

Some oddities realted to the picture.
When lying down I cannot get my hands out over my crotch that far. I can only do that by bending my back or if my upper body half is "leaning forward" compared to my lower body half.
The legs look like the knees are bend as well.

This means that we can fairly say that the body is not that of a man lying down flat on his back. Does this make it impossible to be a shroud? No, not in my opinion. Does this prove it is Jesus' shroud. No, it doesn't. Is this significant? Possibly. Could a medieval forger do this on purpose?

The corner the fiber was taken from was investigated using spectral analisys by Anna Arnoldi of the university of Milan and Raymond N. Rogers of the university of California and it showed that it's not of the same fabric as the rest of the shroud. Possible explanation: repair works in 1532. Does that change the conclusions that it's too young to be Jesus' shroud?

 

[warpus]

Forgive my ignorance, but I don't know much about this.. shroud.

What evidence is there that leads people to believe that this shroud is what people are claiming it is?

I'm just wondering what would make people think that Jesus was wrapped in this - when it easily could have been somebody else.

Did somebody just claim that this was the shroud that Jesus was wrapped in, and everyone believed him?

Or are there documents that outline how the shroud has been preserved since Jesus' death?.. or what?

 

[Elrohir]

But aren't you at all curious...?

A little. If it truly was the Shroud of Jesus, that would be pretty cool. But it doesn't mean it has healing powers or anything like that.

I put my faith in Christ, in a Person and Being, not in an object. While if you can get a sacred relic like that, cool, but I think there has been too much attention pay to this subject.

 

[MrCynical]

Some oddities realted to the picture.
When lying down I cannot get my hands out over my crotch that far. I can only do that by bending my back or if my upper body half is "leaning forward" compared to my lower body half.
The legs look like the knees are bend as well.

I don't know if it's that I've got long arms or something, but in a quick experiment I have no trouble arranging my arms in the position shown on the shroud, even when lying flat on my back.

The legs definitely look a little odd though, as though the knees were pushing up against the shroud and the feet were practically out of contact with it.

 

[Rik Meleet]

I don't know if it's that I've got long arms or something, but in a quick experiment I have no trouble arranging my arms in the position shown on the shroud, even when lying flat on my back.

The legs definitely look a little odd though, as though the knees were pushing up against the shroud and the feet were practically out of contact with it.

With your wrist past your genitals, while your elbows are clearly next to your waist (with room to spare) and your arms not stretched at all ?????

If you stand up and let your arms hang next to your body, are your wrists at crotch-height or far below that ???

 

[MrCynical]

With your wrist past your genitals, while your elbows are clearly next to your waist (with room to spare) and your arms not stretched at all ?????
QUOTE]

Are we both interpreting the shroud image the same way? From what I can see it has one wrist directly over the crotch, with the other hand on top of that. The elbows look well above the line of the waist, nearer the bottom of the rib cage, though they are angled out from the body. It's a little indistinct, but isn't the image's waist only just above the higher of the two wrists?

If you stand up and let your arms hang next to your body, are your wrists at crotch-height or far below that ???

Slightly below, but not that far. I'm not an Orangutan .